The Wellington Diocesan Synod

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 40, 1 October 1891, Page 2

The Wellington Diocesan Synod

(PER UNITED PBESB ASSOCIATION.) Wellington, September 29. The Wellington Diocesan Sjnod was opened to day. In his address, the Pri>» matf said that he learnt with regret that Bishop Selwyn had been obliged to return to England, and doubt existed whether he would ever be able to resume work in the Melanesian Mission ; also with deep regret he learnt that Bishop Selwyn is still in bad health, and that great anxiety is expressed by his friends. Beferrinsj to the Diocese, he said that during the last two years tliere had been a .very large increase of the population in the outlying distries, and he hoped some efforts would be made towards raising more funds for the purpose of supplying these places with resident clergymen. He had written to his Commissary in England to send one or two clergymen suitable for rough country work, but he had failed to find suitable persons. Coming to the absence of religious training in. Government schools, His Lordship said the very fact that the majority of the electors saw no evil in the system which, excludes all reference to that which in all ages lias been recognised as the strongest support to order and the most potent restraint to the commission of crime, was a serious and aiarmmg fact, and constituted the main difficulty in any efforts to reform the system. But the monstrous injui; ice of taxing the whole community for the support of the system from the benefit of which many, on conscientious grounds, were excluded, was utterly indefeasable. The* inference to be drawn from this state of affairs was that the clergy ought to encourage Sunday school teachers to- - qualify themselyes for the important * work of teaching in Sunday schools, as clergymen could rarely do anything ex~ cept in the direction of re-organisation. In conclusion, the Primate referred' to (he various pantheistic, materialistic, and agnostic theories which had of late years been so widely promulgated, and warned younger clergymen especially against the attempts to adopt interpretation of the Holy Scripture to every ephemeral phase of scientific opinion, and on the other hand to accommodate the doctrines of Christianity to every varying dogma of philosophic speculations.